“The most important task for the future" - 8th Suppliers' Day in Bad Berleburg

EJOT Group wants to become climate neutral by 2035.

Sustainability was the central topic of the 8th supplier day of the EJOT Group in the Bürgerhaus am Markt in Bad Berleburg. The central message of this day: the EJOT Group will reduce its CO2 emissions from currently 188,400 tons per year to zero by 2035. "This is the most important future task for EJOT", as Christian Kocherscheidt, Managing Partner of the EJOT Group, as well as Markus Rathmann, Chief Supply Chain Officer, unanimously emphasized in their presentations.

In front of numerous guests from Germany and other European countries, Christian Kocherscheidt emphasized that EJOT, as a technology leader, already makes important contributions to energy saving with its product variety in numerous areas: in thermal insulation, electromobility, car body construction or solar technology. In addition to its own efforts to reduce and avoid emissions, EJOT also relies on green steel and green granules according to Kocherscheidt.

"Avoidance comes before reduction and compensation," Markus Rathmann emphasized. The necessity to act is not only due to increasing requirements of customers and legislators, but especially out of responsibility towards employees and future generations. Rathmann: "We are living on the credit of our children and grandchildren." When it comes to avoiding emissions, EJOT uses solar energy by installing photovoltaic systems or converts the company's own vehicle fleet to electric mobility. EJOT will also increasingly focus on climate neutrality in its own construction activities, for example with the construction of the new Tec Center in Bad Laasphe.
 
The highest emissions at EJOT are in the area of purchased goods. "Therefore, we will start here", Rathmann announced. Sustainable procurement will become the "new normal". An intensive exchange of content with our customers is important: "We also have to learn from each other on this topic." At the next suppliers' day in two years, EJOT will award a sustainability prize, Rathmann announced.

Karsten Schwanke: "The number 1.09 degrees is a huge problem".
"What the EJOT Group has set its sights on is all worth coming here for," said meteorologist and television presenter Karsten Schwanke at the beginning of his guest lecture on the topic of "Climate Change - The Challenge for Our Society." 1.09 degrees is the current figure for global warming since the time of industrialization, Schwanke explained. "It's a number we can't feel permanently, but it's still a huge problem."

What we would perceive immediately, however, are local records: six months of drought in the summer of 2018, the frequency of temperatures above 40 degrees spreading further and further north. Incidentally, 40 degrees Celsius was measured north of the Alps for the first time in 2018, something that had not been seen for 12,000 years. Schwanke referred in this context to the discussion that such temperatures had also existed in the past. It can be assumed that we will have 45 degrees in 30 years, he said. Schwanke: "Our country is definitely not prepared for that." Schwanke made the need to act now clear with a quote from journalist Jürgen Döschner: "When will we finally understand that we preserve more with change than by holding on badly to what is."
 

INFO:

At the beginning of the suppliers' day, an excursion to the EJOT reforestation area at Albrechtsplatz was on the agenda, where the guests planted seedlings under expert guidance. TREEATHLON® is the name of the joint reforestation project of the EJOT Group and the Wittgenstein Berleburg'schen Rentkammer. In the course of this year, a 3.2 large area will be reforested with a climate-stable mixture of deciduous and coniferous trees. The project goal is the creation of a sustainable forest educational experience area for EJOT employees in Wittgenstein. For this purpose, EJOT has concluded a long-term project partnership with the Wittgenstein Berleburg'schen Rentkammer in its 100th anniversary year.
 
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